1. The role of CRM in Key Account Management.

Key Account Management

Key Account Management focuses on the most important (potential) customers and the formation of a dedicated team around these customers. Giving key customers more attention is nothing new. However, what makes Key Account Management so relevant today is the 100 percent focus and teamwork.

You must nurture large customers. Retaining them is crucial for a company. It is, therefore, justifiable to assign a dedicated team to these customers. The distinction is not only determined by the quality and price of your products or services—they must be excellent. It’s about the professional customer-supplier relationship, ensuring continuous tailored delivery. In a Key Account Team, the account manager, internal sales, marketing, production, and administration work closely together.

To implement and optimize Key Account Management, we focus on the following three points in this article:

Goal – What do you want to achieve with Key Account Management?
Tools – How does a CRM system contribute to successful Key Account Management?
People – Who are part of the Key Account Management team?

1. GOAL
Without a goal, there is no direction and no progress. A clearly defined objective is also necessary for Key Account Management. Possible objectives include: increasing revenue per Key Account by X% through more cross-selling, increasing revenue with new Key Accounts by X%, raising profit contribution by X% per customer, increasing customer satisfaction, etc. These objectives should, of course, be SMART.

2. PEOPLE
Key Account Management doesn’t just happen. Creating an optimal team is even more important than the product or service you deliver. A well-oiled team is probably the most critical success factor in achieving your goals.

The composition of a Key Account Team varies per customer and organization. Team members may have different roles, such as Sales Management, Key Account Management, internal sales, and project management. Depending on the size of the organization, there may be more or fewer Key Account Teams, with more or fewer people in each team. But as mentioned, the most important aspect is cohesion. Do the different positions in the Key Account Team complement each other well?

3. TOOLS

Once the Key Account Team is in place, it must have the right tools to collaborate efficiently and effectively. Managing and sharing data and documents is very important for Key Account Management. A CRM system is indispensable for this.

Sharing Information about Key Accounts A prerequisite for the proper functioning of the Key Account Team is that information is well-documented and easily accessible to all team members. This includes addresses, names of contact persons, appointments, actions, documents, and the like. You might also want to include account plans.

Activities – Planning, Progress Reporting Key Account Managers highly value the ease with which they can plan activities—not just their own but also those of their team members. A CRM system facilitates this. By properly setting up CRM, you always have an overview of the progress of activities.

Dashboards How is this information made transparent? A CRM system uses Dashboards containing KPIs. The strength of dashboards lies in making information accessible in a visually appealing way through the use of graphs and pipeline funnels. You know exactly where you stand, and a click on a graph is enough to zoom in on the underlying information.

Conclusie

Key Account Management is a process of consciously building, developing, and actively managing long-term relationships with business customers that are of strategic importance and with whom a balanced relationship can be established.

This process requires an organization where intensive teamwork at various levels and in different business units between the customer and supplier is possible.

In addition to clear objectives and the right team of people, the right tools are also essential for achieving the desired results. CRM plays a crucial role here because a well-implemented CRM system is key to successful Key Account Management.

Read the second article in this series [here].

Jochem Dijs | +31 33 7122160 | jochemd@qssolutions.nl